By Ken Stone — Times of San Diego
A new 30-second commercial, appearing on Rep. Duncan Hunter’s YouTube channel and shared via Twitter, depicts his Democratic opponent as a security risk bankrolled by the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Ammar Campa-Najjar is working to infiltrate Congress,” the narrator says. “He’s used three different names to hide his family’s ties to terrorism.”
The ad was posted about the same time that the Los Angeles Times quoted a spokesman for Hunter as denying that Hunter — in well-publicized remarks in Ramona — labeled Campa-Najjar a Muslim.
“He never made the claim that his opponent is Muslim,” Hunter aide Mike Harrison was quoted as saying. “That’s for his opponent to answer.”
Harrison said the campaign has “heard” Campa-Najjar “claimed to be a Christian.” (Campa-Najjar has repeatedly told of his Christian faith and church activities.)
In a talk Monday to a GOP women’s club in Ramona, Hunter noted a legal name change by Campa-Najjar to remove “Yasser” (his father’s name) from his legal name and add “Joseph” as well.
“His [campaign] signs should actually say: Ammar Joseph Campa or something,” Hunter said Monday. “That is how hard, by the way, that the radical Muslims are trying to infiltrate the U.S. government. You had more Islamists run for office this year at the federal level than ever before in U.S. history.”
Hunter’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the new commercial, which was tweeted by the anti-Muslim account of Amy Jane Mekelburg.
In a statement, board president Kevin Beiser called the remark a “despicable attempt to divide Americans and attack our students simply to advance the interests of an indicted politician.”
Beiser, a Democrat, said Hunter repeats things he knows aren’t true — claims that “have been repeatedly debunked by the media and — just yesterday — by a federal court.”